Thinkpads Forum

do i need to change anything in the BIOS ?
i'm going to leave Vista as well with Dual Boot.

do i need to get any special drivers ?

thanks Dan

for XP setup to see your HDD, you have to go into the BIOS and put SATA into 'compatibility' mode.   i had to do this to setup my vista ultimate 64 + server 2003 dual boot.   fun stuff.

and leave it that way for Vista too ?
does it effect performance in Vista ?

danny_isr wrote:and leave it that way for Vista too ?
does it effect performance in Vista ?

For Vista, you should set it to SATA. If you don't, the correct drivers won't be installed, and I've heard that some people have had problems sorting it out later on.

so basically you saying , for every time i'm switching OS i have to go to the BIOS and change this ?

i inadvertently installed vista ultimate 64 under compatibility mode and when i switched back to AHCI it gave me a BSOD upon booting into vista.   compatibility mode was the only way to get server 2003's installation to see my SATA drive and i forgot i had switched this when installing VU64.

since neither installation is a production environment (both are just for testing right now), i'll leave them both in compatibility.   it would be a PITA to chance the BIOS every time i want to boot into a different OS.

ok , i followed this link : http://www.pro-networks.org/forum/about88231.html

including the dual boot. i get the menu and everything looks good.
loading Vista - all good, then i reboot and trying to load XP
i get this :

File :\ntldr
status: 0xc000000e
info: the selected entry could not be loaded because the application is missing or corrupt

so i went and installed XP again.
worked , installed Boot manager. loaded Vista everything fine.
trying to load XP , and again i get this message .....

You should be able to do this from Vista as well.

Now you'll need to move some files. First, make sure you have set your folder options to show hidden files and to show protected operating system files. (in Vista that is done under | Organize | Folder and Search Options | View (tab)) Then open Windows Explorer and go to the root of the drive where Vista is installed. Copy the folder Boot, and the files bootmgr, boot.ini, NTDETECT.COM and ntldr and paste them to the root of your XP drive.

Then download Vista Boot Pro and save it to your desktop or somewhere else that you can easily access. Unless you already have .Net Framework (v2.0 at least) it will redirect you to a Microsoft page where you can download this necessary component.

Install and run Vista Boot Pro and open the "Bootloader" tab. Select "Reinstall the Vista bootloader" and press Apply. Then go to the Manage OS Entries tab and select "Add new operating system entry" and make sure you select "Windows Legacy". Give the new entry a name (ie: Windows XP) and select the drive letter you have XP on and then select Apply. You can also choose which entry you would like as the default the system will boot to.

And now you should be able to dual boot between Vista and a previous OS.

haha it works !

THANKS !